Theia to bring her unique style to Hastings
Theia x TE KAAHU, Girl In A Savage World
Theia makes her return to New Zealand with her Theia x TE KAAHU, Girl In A Savage World tour after headlining and performing at festivals all over the United States and Canada.
Em-Hayley Walker (WaikatoTainui, Nga¯ti Tipa¯) is known as Theia. The Christchurch-born artist is a composer and a songwriter and has two successful musical projects.
As Theia, she writes and sings altpop music, which Theia calls riot pop because it can be political, experimental and sometimes brash. As TE KAAHU, her waiata or songs are entirely in te reo Ma¯ori, where Theia focuses on kaupapa and pa¯mamae through her music.
TE KAAHU’s waiatas are set the nostalgic tone of the 60s with a doowop sound similar to the songs Theia’s nannies used to listen to.
With her Girl In A Savage World tour Theia is mixing things up and combining both her English and te reo musical projects in a way she has never done before.
Theia explained this tour is likely the only time she will bring together the performance and style of TE KAAHU, which for anyone who doesn’t know it is very organic instrumental sounding, with a gentle and nostalgic old-school feeling.
“I will be taking my Theia music which is often performed in a very high-energy setting, with a live band and heavy electronic tracks and performing the songs completely stripped back and bringing both projects together in a way that will show the parallels between the two and perhaps although they are different genres and languages they are not that dissimilar in terms of the kaupapa and subject matters.”
After the impact of Cyclone Gabrielle on the region, Theia wanted to make sure her Hawke’s Bay show was incredibly accessible, so she made sure to drop the prices of her Hawke’s Bay Arts Festival.
“I’m really excited to experience performing in Hawke’s Bay again after performing in some of the rural town halls with the Small Hall Tours in December of last year.”
Since then Theia has been
performing her music overseas, including at the LA Pride Festival, and said it was very different to performing in Aotearoa, for starters just by the sheer population size.
Theia has been touring her awardwinning reo Ma¯ori project TE KAAHU in Canada and has been on the same line-ups as heavyweights like Emmylou Harris and Jeff Tweedy.
One of the festivals Theia performed TE KAAHU at was in Yellowknife, Canada, which was very far north quite close to the Arctic, Theia said, “their population was 52 per cent indigenous which was quite profound for me”.
The reaction in Canada was not what Theia expected.
She wondered what would happen when performing in te reo at Calgary and Yellowknife as TE KAAHU doesn’t have one word of English in it.
Theia said, “The reaction was really remarkable, people were reduced to tears, and audibly sobbing which was mindblowing and there were so many comments from people adoring the language, storytelling and the connection to culture.”
Receiving positive feedback from her Canadian tour was a nice reminder for Theia that her language is relevant and deserves to be celebrated, she said.
While studying te reo Rangatira and Ma¯ori and indigenous studies at university Theia would receive unwanted comments about how her degree and language wouldn’t be of any use outside of New Zealand.
“I was just constantly told that our language had no relevance outside of our shores, which is really not true,” Theia said.
Theia x TE KAAHU brings the Girl In A Savage World tour to the Toitoi Opera House, Hastings on Sunday, October 22 at 8pm as part of the Hawke’s Bay Arts Festival.